Little white lies...

Have you ever felt like someone was lying to you?

I have nothing to boast about, I am nothing; but God has given me the strange ability to discern when someone is lying to me; I have no idea what I would call it, but sometimes I hate it. It is more like an impression, but it is so convincingly strong, that it actually screams at me "that's a lie"; and I hate it. As it turns out, 100 percent of the times I have had that impression, it turns out to be the truth about it, someone just lied to me.

I wish I could just believe everything people say to me at all times; but I can't. The worst thing about this strange gift, or strange curse maybe, is that it only happens, or mostly happens, with people I care about; that is what makes me hate it, because I think, why not just tell me the truth? Is it fear to hurt my feelings? Or looking like an idiot in my eyes? The worst thing about it, one more thing about it, is that I wish they could just not say anything instead of lying, and there is nothing I can do about it, and it makes me lie too: "it's ok, don't worry about it". Well, no, it is not ok, and yes, they should worry about it.

Unfortunately, even with the ones who claim to be regenerate, it is human nature to hide our mistakes; to run and hide behind words. God hates lying for the same exact reason; He doesn't want me to make excuses but to accept the fact that I sinned, so if I sinned, I should confess and repent; that is pleasing to Him.

Have you ever wonder why there is a commandment that says, thou shalt not lie? "Oh well, I am not under the law", you say. Really? You are not under the law so you think it is okay to lie? I think your interpretation of the scriptures is twisted. We are not under the law to be slaves to it, but it doesn't mean we can just do away with the law. Jesus came to fulfill the law for us but we are still bound to live without breaking the law; the New Testament is filled with commands that are equivalent to all the commandments in the old, just do a little study on your own and you will see.

So why am I writing about this? Well, I woke up at about 10 am, thinking "that was a lie, what a story"; and it has been bothering me all morning. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that I am exactly the same way; sometimes I lie, I still practice what we call 'little white lies'; and it really bothers me.

What made still a deeper impression in my mind, is that yesterday I was babysitting my grand kids, and in one of our conversations we started talking about heroes; of course I ended up saying that Jesus is my hero; then I said, 'if you want to be my hero, tell the truth all the time and you will be"; my grand daughter said "ok grampa, I will". Was she lying? I don't think so; she was totally sincere; in her mind she wants to be my hero and so she said that she will tell the truth all the time; I know that is not possible, but I believed her.

Anyway, I had to write all of the above to just get it out of my brain, and I hope it doesn't bother you, I'm not lying.

One day soon, I will finally be free from this flesh, I will be free from the struggle; I will finally be transformed into the image of God's Son, and there will be no more lies, no more trying to justify myself before the eyes of men, and women, I will be free to worship in Spirit and in truth; I will not have to cry out "God help me" all the time, I'm really looking forward to that glorious day. I am really looking forward to that holy congruency between my words and my deeds.

Have a nice day, and that's no lie.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

The chief end of man...

Click the picture to enlarge it...you will like it.

Warning: This post is too long, and it's only half of what I want to say, so be aware the second part is coming; oh noooo, a second part? Give you a brake!

I said at the beginning-about 4 years or so ago- that thinking is a privilege of the highest order; it is my thinking life which determines the way I see the world and life in general, I think; I'm always thinking, sometimes too much. With that privilege comes the responsibility of thinking right, thinking truth. If you haven't noticed it yet, one of my goals in writing is to make you think. But some people don't like to think, "your blog is too long bro".

How do you see life? What is this life? Is it a combination of time and physics? Is it only a biological process? Is it an illusion? Is it all a dream? More like a nightmare that you can't awake from?

Sometimes I think life is a series of events that happen in non-stop succession; or maybe life is a moment in time that keeps on sliding on a series of events second by second. It is all like a nut that turns and slides on the threads of a long screw; I am standing on the nut, and the events in life are the threads of the screw, and the person with the wrench who turns the screw is God, He is holding the nut with His left hand and wrenches on it with the right one; His attention is always fixed in controlling how fast it turns and that it never cross-threads; He always makes sure that it is all lubricated and there are no snags on the threads. I like mechanical things, can you tell? Like fine watches and guns, and motorcycles, and clean steam generators, and juice extractors.

How do you perceive life? Is it a long screw with a nut to you? Do you feel that your life is "all screwed up"? Do you feel like God is using a power tool to turn your screw and life is flying? Or do you feel He is doing it by hand, and life is going very slow? Maybe you think that your life is all cross-threaded; you think He forgot to use anti-seize.

Or maybe life is a constant present moment that keeps on happening second by second? Instant by instant? Or maybe it is a long chain of dreams that are broken the moment you cross a point in the thread? How about a long series of imaginary goals that never seem to get achieved?

I struggle with this issue almost every day; okay, maybe not struggle, but I think about it very often.

Some people see life as the present, a point "between the already and the not yet", which to me sounds very geeky; for some people it is all vain, just like Solomon said, everything is vanity, vanity of vanities. For some it is all about having fun, and buying toys and entertaining themselves; some people get bored when they don't think that whatever is happening in their lives is fun. Just like my grand kids, they are always looking for something fun to do; they cannot sit down and relax, they have too much energy to spend.

Is it really all about having fun? Does life have to be fun to be enjoyed? And what is my problem talking about this? Maybe I'm just bored and I need to waste someone's time by writing a blog; maybe I just want to appear that I'm cool and all mature and stuff, and I just want to show up by writing and showing my great abilities to reason things out; but that is also vain, and it's not true; it is not true that I'm writing for that reason, and it is not true that my abilities to reason things out are great either.

A friend just called a few of days ago to tell me how happy she is that I am writing on the blog again; and she said "what a great legacy for your kids and grand kids"; she said she loves the way I write stuff, she thinks about what I say- and by the way, thanks for the call sister, I felt encouraged, at least someone is reading- and frankly, that is one the reasons I started writing in the first place (just one of the reasons), since I am not rich and can't leave anything behind me, my inheritance to my children will be my thoughts in writing; I thought it was a good idea, even though I don't consider myself to be a good writer.

Maybe someday my kids and grand kids will read the blog and think about God and Jesus and what He has done for them, maybe they will fall deeper in love with Him, I hope and pray that it will happen, and I hope they remember that God blessed me by giving them to me to enjoy for a time in my life; I hope they remember me for my love for God, a love I didn't have until He gave it to me.

So getting back to the questions, what is life really about? Why are we here in the first place? Of course everybody has a different answer to those questions, and I guess it all depends on what kind of life you have had so far; for me it seems that my nut and screw are cross threaded and rusty all the time, but in reality they are as they are supposed to be, and they are just a tiny part of the huge machinery of the universe; it is all smooth and it runs just fine; soon I will run out of threads.

My perspective about life has changed a lot; when I was a child I thought like a child, and behaved like a child (sometimes I still do both); but I knew there was something more about being here than just being here.

I used to move my eyes really fast from left to right or close one and open the other and switch really fast from one eye to the other, and marvel about how the perspective changed as I moved my sight (I still do that to make people trip out, it's fun, you should try it some time); then I realized that my body was not really me, I knew the person inside of my body was the real me. I was fascinated by the idea of living inside this body; I closed my eyes often just to trip out about that fact; wow, I thought, I live inside my head.

That made me think about death, and about life. How did I get here? Did my parents make me? What happens when I die? Why am I here inside this head? Why is my head right between my shoulders? It was all so strange to me; I'm still fascinated by the whole thing. Do you ever think about that?

When I was a kid I was catechized by the catholic church; I assume that they still catechize children, not only in the catholic church but in other churches also, I mean protestant churches. I am not really sure of the history of the original catechism, I need to study about it so I can speak with certainty, but I know that the Reformed Church of England had a short and a long catechism; and they used them to teach children and adults alike about the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

According to what I remember, I had to go to catechism so that after passing the test I could take my first communion; all the details are kind of fuzzy and I don't want to say anything inaccurate, but I think that is the way it worked back then; I'm talking about 45 years ago or so; and it never made sense to me.

The Catholic church had a bunch of rituals that never made sense to me, like kneeling and standing, and sitting, and crossing your face with your fingers and kissing your thumb, and sprinkling "holy" water on your face, and things like that; First Communion was a big deal though.

I have no idea why that came into my mind right now but anyway; the Reformed faith had a catechism, and there were two versions of it; The Shorter Catechism contained 97 questions, and the Larger Catechism contained 196, I think; have you ever read any one of them?

What the heck is a 'catechism'? You might ask. Well, a catechism is nothing more than a bunch of questions about doctrine, and their answers, that is it. All the questions and answers of the Reformed catechism are based on the bible, and usually all the bible scriptures are included with the answers, book, chapter and verse.

My point is that the first question of the catechism is: "What is the chief end of man?" And of course, the answer to that question is the answer to the questions I have been asking since I started writing this post, but I'm not going to tell you just to keep it interesting..... just kidding.

The answer, according to the Reformed Catechism, is: "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever".
Is that answer deep and spiritual enough for you?..... It is for me, it is so deep and spiritual that just blows my mind; think about it and you will see what I mean.

I can see by the way I'm thinking that this is going to be a long post; maybe I will stop soon so you can get back to cleaning your finger nails; or whatever you were doing before you opened this post. Ok, maybe not.

To glorify God and enjoy Him forever? Is that why I'm here? Living inside this body? Yeap; that is it; that is the main reason for life, the "chief end" of man, and women. In fact, that is the reason everything exists, and that is the reason why God created you and me, and the universe; one, to glorify Him, and two, so that we enjoy Him forever. Wow, the implications are immense, think about it......

Did you think about it? Ok, I'll give you some more time..........

To glorify God. How do you do that? What does glorify mean in the first place? Yeah, I think we should define 'glorify' first so we are in the same page, don't you think? Of course you do.

At the beginning of my walk I thought that to 'glorify God' meant to exalt God, to give Him praise, and worship; I was kind of right. The dictionary has some definitions: to cause to be, or seem to be better than the actual condition; etc. Some of those definitions are pretty lame so I won't list them here.

But I have a dictionary of theology, so I looked up 'glorify' and there is nothing; but there is 'glory'; so here it is: [ Glory. Biblical; Hebrew "kabod", from a root signifying 'weight' --(not in the dictionary but check Paul's inference to 'weight' in this passage: 2Cor. 4:17--). In the Greek (NT and Septuagint) the word is 'doxa', which originally meant an opinion. In both testaments the word means 1. Excellence and praiseworthiness set forth in display (glory shown); then 2. honour and adoration expressed in response to this display (glory given).
In His acts of creation, providence and grace, God shows His glory, glorifying Himself (Isa. 44:23; Jn. 12:28; 13:31-32), His Son (Jn. 13:31-32, 17:5; Acts 3:13 cf; 1Peter 1:21) and His servants (Rom. 8:17-18, 30; 2Cor. 3:18).

Seeing this, His worshipers give Him glory, 'glorifying' Him by praise, thanks, obedience, and acceptance of providentially ordered suffering for His sake (Jn. 17:4, 21:19; Rom. 4:20, 15:16; 1Cor. 6:20, 10:31; 1Pet. 4:12-16).]
(Note: If you don't want to look the scripture references up, just put your mouse cursor on top of the verse mentioned and it will display automatically, but this can only be done if you are looking at the blog, so if you got this via email, you might want to click on the link at the bottom and go to the blog. Or just grab your bible and look them up the old school way:)

It goes on to describe what 'glory' in people means according to the bible, and then adds this: "The giving of glory to God in worship is called 'doxology'. The Psalms are full of it."

I hope you are not getting bored with this, I think it is super fascinating, glorious indeed, but if you are, no biggie just turn the page or delete the email, so there.

Anyway, the dictionary continues with this: Theological. All serious Christian thinkers acknowledge that glorifying God is at once man's divine calling and his highest joy, both here and hereafter. Reformed theology goes beyond other views, however, in emphasizing these three truths. 1. God's goal in all that He does is His glory, in the sense of a). displaying His moral excellence to His creatures and b). evoking their praise for what they see and for the benefit it brings them (cf. Eph. 1:3). 2. Man's goal in all his actions must be God's glory in the sense of doxology by word and deed. 3. God so made us that we find the duty of doxology to be our supreme delight, and in that way, the furthering of our own highest good. This coinciding of duty with interest, and devotion with fulfillment, was classically formulated in the first answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever". Bibliography: S. Aalen, NIDNTT II, pp. 44ff.; A.M. Ramsey, The glory of God and the transfiguration of Christ (London 1949).

Wow, I ended up where I began with that last line from the theological dictionary, 'man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever'.

So you and I can see that the chief end of man, the purpose of life, is to glorify God; and by the definition of glory we can see that to glorify God means that whatever we do in word or deed has to express worship, and praise, and adoration, and delight in exalting the magnificent perfections of God.

The main reason why Jesus died on a cross and was brought back to life, is so that we can glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Forever meaning, with no end in sight; there is no end to that enjoyment, it never comes to a conclusion, it happens constantly and non stop, just like life.

If that is the case and since God never changes, then to glorify Him will constantly bring a benefit to those who glorify Him. To enjoy God forever I need eternal life; and to have eternal life as defined by Jesus Himself, is to know God; so, knowing God glorifies God.

The thing is that the bible says that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (Rom. 14:23); and sin is totally on the other side of glorifying God; it also says that everyone in the world is a sinner, and there is no one righteous, not even one; so obviously, only the ones who have faith have the ability to know God and glorify Him, because the ones who have faith have been regenerated by the Spirit of God and they have been imputed with the righteousness of Jesus; all this to the praise of the glory of His grace.

Remember that verse in Ephesians? "For by grace you have been saved though faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works (or right actions), so that no one may boast". This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God; what is "this"? The "not your own doing"? The grace or the faith? It is both.

Grace by its nature cannot be my own doing, and faith cannot be my own doing because Paul has just explained in Romans 8 that the natural man is totally opposed to the law of God and cannot submit to Him at all. So it takes a supernatural event to fill a man with faith in the gospel; and faith cannot be there unless the man has been regenerated first, which is another supernatural event.

I think I am going to stop here since this is getting pretty long, I'm going to have to do part 2 some day; but I want to leave you with this thought in your mind: one way God is glorified, is by your faith in Him; God gave you the faith to believe in Him and glorify Himself thereby.

I really want to keep on writing all this stuff I have in my brain right now but I won't, I know you have to get back to work, or your fingernails, but the next time you think your life is a mess and that you bring little glory to God, remember that He is the one who made you to glorify Him and enjoy Him; so relax and enjoy the faith He gave you; all of it became possible by the cross of Jesus and you are His treasure.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever; so enjoy Him now.

Have a nice day.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

I need help....

Note: I wrote the following post back in April 15th of this year; and for some reason it shows up in my post list as a "draft"; which means that it never got published; what is weird, maybe it is not weird, is that I was thinking about exactly the same thing this morning; so I thought I'd throw it out there so you can read it. If I'm wrong and I have already posted it, and therefore you have already read it, then my apologies for wasting you time; but if it is true that I haven't posted it, then I hope it may be helpful to you as it has been for me. End of note.

I realized that the last time I wrote anything was last year in November; and then I realized that time is flying extremely fast, the day is coming, or it is at least closer than ever, to be with Jesus. I welcome that thought.

I used to write a lot, and often; but lately life has been coming and going too fast. There are many things I want to do and there is not enough time, and not enough money either. There are people I would like to see more often but I really don't think they're interested so I don't make the effort anymore; I should be helping more people, I should be calling my friends, I should call my mother, I should write letters, I should visit people in jail, and in hospitals, and I should be.. blah, blah, blah. I should pray more, I should read the word more, and so forth and so on. I need help.

I cannot remember how many times, probably thousands of times, I have prayed "help me God"; those are not elaborate prayers, there has been no worship, there has been no thankfulness, no adoration, not even repentance in any of those prayers, not in a single one of them. They have come out of my mouth in thousands of moments of despair, thousands of instances of fear, thousands of times of insane pain and fretful worry.

It is an amazing fact of my life, "help me God" is an almost daily prayer of mine; sometimes it happens as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, that's all I can think of: I need help from God, daily help, moment by moment help; help to live without fear, help to think clearly, help to live this life of a Christian, help to not condemn myself, help to forget about all the horrible things I have done, help to not get resentful for all the terrible things people have done to me, help to forgive those I hate, help to stop hating, help to accept the fact that I will always sin as long as I have this body of flesh; I need help to allow myself to be helped. "I believe, please help my unbelief". I just need help period.

I am not a strong man in my eyes; in fact I think I am one of the most fearful and weakest individuals walking on this earth; yeah I said it, I think I am weak, fearful, horridly pathetic in my walk with Christ, my walk is more like a crawl most of the time, I don't even think I am a good example to my kids, sometimes I even think our dog just wags his tail when he sees me because he has no choice, he doesn't like me, it is just that he is a dog and he has to move his tail. The view from down here is not very appealing; I think I am a failure, and I spiritualize everything.

I have doubts the size of mount Everest; I don't like what I see in the mirror, all these white hairs sprouting everywhere like a virus, more like weeds, and all those new wrinkles, and all those new pains in my body, they only help to point my attention to my soon coming death, which is not helpful; what will it be like? Will I die in pain? Will I be in agony, grasping for air? "Resist the devil and he will flee from you", yeah sure, but that is not the devil, that's me in that mirror, what am I going to do? I can't live like this, but I do, and I cry out once more: Help me God!

All of those thoughts above happen in a micro second, in the twinkling of an eye; it is like a massive waterfall, a thought-made Niagara, frozen in time, like an avalanche, in a micro second; and all I can do is cry out for help; there is really nothing else to do.

The wonder of it all is that God really does help me; that is what really blows my mind. He reminds me of words He has spoken, like: "What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies". And: "to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness".

Ah precious help from God, precious justification in Jesus, ah precious gift of faith!! There is no better help than the very words of God, the God who justifies the ungodly by grace through faith in Christ. The wrath of God has been removed from above my head, and having been justified by faith I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ!!

Is anything else more relevant for life? Is anything more precious? Is anything of more value than the blood of Christ that washes my sins away? Is anything more amazing than this grace in which we stand? Anything more helpful? I don't think so. The Gospel is the help I need, the cross is what brings me back to the rock, to my fortress, and my strong tower, my refuge and my strength; Jesus my High Priest, my redeemer, my King of kings; "For I, the LORD your God hold your right hand, it is I who says to you 'fear not, I AM the One who helps you". "I will never leave you nor forsake you". Thank you.

If any kind of help comes, it comes from God Almighty, if there is any comfort to my pain, it comes from The God of all comfort, if there are any thoughts of peace, they come from the God of peace, if any help comes to meet my need, it comes from His riches in glory in Christ Jesus; if any fear is conquered, it is conquered by the King of kings, the One and Only, the Overcomer of this world; He makes war on my enemies with the sword that comes out of His mouth; and sometimes my heart is my worst enemy, He has conquered that too, He gave me a new one. He is indeed my ever present help in my time of need.

Oh my goodness! I have been justified! I have been made righteous by imputation, Jesus took my condemnation; it even rhymes. Glorious rhyme. I'll say it again, it blows my mind, He does really help me when I need help; and it is a good thing I see that I need help, it is a good thing I see my wretchedness, my inability to perform, my insufficiency to please Him, my deficiency to do anything, even to live. It is a good thing I am weak for His strength is made perfect in weakness, and it is really true, when I am weak, He is strong.

The most help comes from knowing that help is not help for help's sake, in fact it is not even for my sake; yes indeed God cares for me, He is concerned with the most minimal detail in my life, as a matter of fact He is so concerned that He has total control over all things, and not even one of my hairs fall, or turns gray, without Him knowing about it; but it is not for my sake; it is all for the sake of His glory, for the sake of the glory of His name, for His renown, for His prestige, for His fame in all the earth that He does these things. He restores my soul and leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

At the end of the day, I have been helped, even when I don't think I have, I have; and God has been glorified. He did get the glory when relief came, He got the glory when I prayed in the first place, a "God help me!" prayer is more than glorifying to God; it shows total, utter dependence on Him for help, why would I pray if I didn't believe that He hears me? And why would I believe if He didn't give me the faith to begin with? Faith is a gift from God, I didn't pull it out of my back pocket.

So if you are reading this, you are either my daughter or my friend or my brother, or my sister, or maybe you ended up here by "coincidence"; but know this: God is willing to help you even more than you want to be helped, but He does it for the sake of the glory of His name, not yours; in fact I believe that He is the One who engineers the circumstances in such a way that we become powerless, so that we can cry out, God help me.

So go on, cry out "God help me"; in doing so you are praying according to His will, and this is the confidence that we have towards Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us, and if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.

Have a nice day walking in grace.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

The book of God....

The Orion Nebula (click to enlarge).


The first time I read the bible and could understand it, I was overwhelmed with joy. I do remember how I felt, I can even feel it right now as I am writing this.

The first time I ever saw a bible was when I was about six years old; my parents had a huge book shelf upstairs with all kinds of books, you know, like encyclopedias, classic works like The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer, The Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (which I devoured later on and read about three times, it was awesome), there were books by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Feodor Dostoevsky, Rudyard Kipling, Cervantes Saavedra, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Honore De Balzac, Daniel Defoe, Leon Tolstoy, Voltaire, Dumas, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, etc, etc. Gee, I forgot all those names; but you know what I'm talking about, there were works of fiction, novels, history, all kinds of literary art; it all was very amazing to me; and right in the middle of all those rows and rows of books there were two bibles, in Spanish of course.

I was at an age when I had just learned how to read, and so I was on a quest to read anything that had letters on it; I would read car brand names on the road, I would read all the signs I saw in the streets, I read the labels on bottles of shampoo, letters on the newspapers, magazines, lots of letters, letters everywhere, and the letters made words of course; wow, it was a new world to me, all those words saying something to me.

When I saw those bibles I was fascinated by them; one was bigger than the other, the smaller one was almost like a pocket bible, and both had leather covers on them with beautiful embossed gold letters: "Santa Biblia". One thing that really caught my attention was the paper that was used to print them, it was almost see-through paper, extremely fine, and now I realize, extremely expensive, or maybe not, who knows.

But what really captivated me was the fact that almost on every page there were all these marks made with a very fine tipped red pencil; there were these very fine arrows pointing to certain verses, and some of the most beautiful hand writing I have ever seen, indicating other verses and perhaps little comments about the verses the arrows pointed at; I don't remember the details, but I knew someone had written those words and arrows and marks on those pages.

I asked my mother what those books were, especially the one with the arrows and the marks, and she told me those were bibles, the book of God; and that they used to belong to my grand father; that is, her father. The last time I saw that little bible, it was in my mother's bedroom, right next to her night stand; that was just 8 months ago.

I think I wrote something about those bibles before, maybe in another post, I don't remember right now; but one thing I do remember is that I did not understand the words on those bibles; well, I did and I didn't. I knew the words and the letters, but I could not discern the meaning of the sentences; it was almost like another language, it was very strange to me; I knew those books were special, but in a way that was almost mysterious; I tried and tried, but could not really get the real meaning of the sentences; and the less I understood, the more I wanted to understand, but I couldn't; and no wonder, they were written in Reina Valera Spanish, the equivalent to King James English.

Then my mother told me that she had memorized all the names of the books of the bible, her father used to read it to her and her sister and brother, and so I memorized them with her; wow I memorized all those names with her. I really felt proud of myself.

I went to a catholic school for boys only; and one of the classes was a New Testament class; we learned how to navigate the bible, you know, chapters, verse numbers, that kind of thing. In the school was this man who wore a long robe, and we all loved this man, his name was Padre Solis; he was all sweetness. Every day he walked around during our recess, and we all would gather around him to hear what he had to say; and he would tell us stories about Jesus, and Mary, and all those catholic stories. I can still see his face in my mind, he smelled like incense. We all loved him.

Padre Solis gave me a small book of John one time, sometimes he would give us candy, but this time he was passing little books of John around; it was probably the size of a drivers license; and so I kept it in my back pocket; and I would read that tiny book everywhere; in the bus, at recess, during class, I could not stop reading that tiny book. I believed everything it said to me.

Some things I could not understand, still, but some others I did. Like Jesus walking on water; that made a huge impact in my life; the world had another meaning when I read that book.
The world still has another meaning when I read the book of God.

For twenty five years or so, I forgot about the book of God, I stopped believing it; in fact I was disgusted with it; I thought it had been written by men to brain wash the minds of people so they could get their money; I thought it was all a scam. Pure religion. I hated religion, I still do.

So what happened? Well, what happened was that God won; He always wins. For God, who is omnipotent, and all knowing, nothing is impossible; and when He has determined that He will have His way with men and women, who is able to resist? I could not resist Him any longer; so one day back in 1989, He removed all of my heart's opposition, and demolished all of my mind's preconceptions and misjudgments; and He made me what He intended to make me from before the foundation of the world; and now I belong to Him.

One day I was reading the book of John, back in 1990, and I read the story again; Jesus walking on the water in the middle of that storm. I understood the bible then, of course there are things written in it that I still don't understand completely, but I knew that Jesus is God; I clearly understood that. I not only understood it, but also believed it; I still do. I was filled with joy.

In some of the darkest moments in my life, I have tried to stop believing; I'm serious. I bet that you have probably felt like that too; you know what I'm talking about; in moments when nothing in life makes sense, moments, probably hours or days long, in which there is no comfort to be found anywhere; moments in which no one seems to care about you, every body else is hung up in their little worlds and tiny lives, and the best thing you hear is "I'll pray for you"; those are the kind of moments that you wish you could just go back to what you were doing before, "I'll go back to Egypt, at least I had onions and leeks to eat", or "I'm just going to get loaded, it doesn't make any difference, all this Christian stuff is so lame, there is no joy in this kind of life".

I have had moments in which I wanted to throw the bible in the garbage can, thinking it is idiotic; why would someone believe all this stuff about God? Well, what happens is that faith is not something I can just get rid of; faith is something that God gives you and it is there to stay until the day you die.

If you believe that it is up to you to believe, if it is up to you to have faith; you probably think that there is something you can do to acquire that faith, maybe you think that faith is somewhere inside of you, hidden in some recondite space in your mind or heart; and it is all up to you to find it and bring it to the surface, to the forefront of your thinking so you can exercise it. I used to think that way, until I read the book of God and found out I was wrong. There is nothing I can do to get faith on my own, it is impossible according to the book of God.

Faith is a gift from God Himself; and just as any other one of His gifts, He gives it to whoever He pleases, at the time He chooses. To think that any one can believe on his/her own demonstrates our total ignorance of what the book of God says, and at the end it is a perversion of the gospel of Jesus.

Regardless, I am still reading the book of God every day, two or three times per day; I'm still fascinated by it, I'm taken away straight to God when I read it; but I'm not going to lie to you, sometimes I do not want to read it, but I fight for it; I force myself to leave it open right on the table where I eat, so as I sit down my eyes go to it right away; I'm not boasting at all, I'm just showing you how opposed my mind can be to anything that pertains to God and His book.

It is then that I remember the joy of understanding what it says to me; and the peace of believing what I already believe; that God will never leave me nor forsake me; that even if I threw His book in the garbage can, it wouldn't change anything about His love for me; that all things, even the ones that look really bad, are working together for my good because I love God and I have been called according to His purpose.

The book of God tells me that even when I was weak and without strength, and at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly (that's me); it tells me that to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (that's me); it tells me that He saved me not because of righteous works I had done, but because of His mercy; it tells me that He began a good work in me, and He will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ; and it tells me so many more things about what He has done for me, and He will continue to do.

You are probably busy right now, working and all that; but let me give you some counsel for today: when you get a few minutes, sit down and read the book of God. I am sure that He wants to tell you, once again, that He is always thinking about you; and that no matter how grim the future looks right now, He has prepared things beautiful beyond reason for those who love Him.

Have a nice day.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com

We are His work of art....

(You might want to click on the picture to enlarge it)

More often than not, I am aware of God's sovereignty over all things; especially the things that happen in my tiny life; and more often than not, God shows me how faithful He is to His promises. He is amazing.

My life is a series of tiny miracles that happen in rapid succession; sometimes they happen so fast that I have to stop to think and pay attention to really perceive them happening; yeah I know, I spiritualize everything, even the tacos; but that is really not my fault, God made me like that.

Just from the physics stand point, my life is a miracle. Every time I take a breath a miracle happens; my lungs filter the air and take the oxygen out of it, and at the same time they exhale the bad air out, cleaning (or cleansing, whatever) my blood; the same thing happens with my kidneys, and my liver. I take it all for granted, I don't even think about it, I just breathe and the miracle happens.

My heart pumps blood non stop every single day of my life, it never stops irrigating all my body with clean blood, pushing it all through my body filters; the cells take the nutrients and let go of the bad stuff all without me feeling or knowing about it, it is a miracle.

It all blows me away when I think about it. I made calculations; yeah it's crazy, who thinks about this? But I made the calculations, and of course they are all approximate, but they give me an idea of what is happening; my heart is beating at 84 times per minute right now, that amounts to 5,040 per hour, and that is 120,960 times in one day. You know where I'm going with this, right?

120,960 times 365 is 44'150,400 beats per year; you read that right, that is more than 44 million times in one year, multiply that by 80, which is the average life time, and that amounts to more than 35 billion times; actually I'm not sure since the calculator showed an"e", which means an error; but the number is mind boggling anyway; this heart of mine is a very efficient pump, and the only one in control of when it stops beating is my God. This is a miracle.

I read somewhere in the past, that the liver has more than 50 different types of cells, each one in charge of a different function; just think about that for a minute, that is another mind boggling statement, another miracle that happens all the time and that I take for granted; many times because I'm worried about money; what a pity.

Then I have all those billions of neurons in my central nervous system working all the time, I think they all work fine so far, maybe there are just a few that are working right, but you get the point, half of the 40 or so left are working on my vain thoughts most of the time. They're probably working overtime, and overloaded.

God is in control of all these things, and they happen, they faithfully happen everyday of my life; and God proves Himself over and over, sometimes I don't pay attention to all the little blessings. It is because of His great mercy that I am not consumed and His compassions fail not, they are new every morning, oh how great is His faithfulness!

My income just went down a thousand dollars per month and I think I should be freaking out, but for some strange reason I am not freaking out; it is actually very strange. Please don't think I'm boasting in my ability to keep my cool, I am not; I am just a man made of what a man is made of, flesh and bone, dirt, mud, and I should freak out, but I'm not.

I'm expecting another miracle; it always happens, but if it doesn't, I'm fine with it. God has always sustained me; in the worst of circumstances He has always provided for my needs and so I am learning to trust Him; He can do whatever He wants with me, at any time He pleases, and there is nothing I can do about it. He really reigns supreme.

At the end of the day, nothing really matters except that I walk in His ways, and that He reminds me of my standing; every day I need a reminder that I am just a man, a sinner saved by grace; that I came naked into the world and that I will leave the world naked, my only hope and belief is the gospel; the good news of Jesus dying in my place, the good news that I am in Him, and that He has bought me with His blood, that I am His, that He took my sin upon Him, and that He robed me in His righteousness.

All the little miracles remind me of His grace; all the apparent lack reminds me of His provision, all the temporary problems remind me of His everlasting love; the fleeting chaos of one day of life reminds me of everlasting life in His presence; that He is able to make me stand and present me faultless before Him in that great day of either my death or His return.

That is what I need every day, a massive dose of God's sovereignty to remind me who He is, and who I am; so that I know, that I know that He knows everything and nothing escapes His attention, that not a hair of my head falls to the ground without Him knowing, ah, the peace of knowing and believing the gospel, that is what I need.

Do you ever feel like God has abandoned you? I do. Do you ever, or have you ever felt that He was not listening to your prayers? I have. Do you ever feel like 'what's the use?' I do. Do you ever think that God is mad at you because you keep on doing that thing you know you should not do? I do. And do you ever feel like you have made a thousand wrong decisions and it is all a mess because of you-that you are being chastised because you were bad- and an idiot? I do. They are all false feelings, and false thoughts.

All of them are lies in our minds, there is not a single scripture in the bible that supports them; I have read it, and I know. Prove me wrong if you want to, but you won't prove me wrong with scripture.

In fact, the contrary is true; our problem most of the time is that we either forget what the bible says, or we just haven't read it, and then when we read it we don't think it applies to us; 'yeah all of that is true for King David, not for me'. If the bible is indeed the word of the Almighty God of heaven and earth, then all of those verses that talk about God being in control are true; all of them.

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens and see, who created all of these? He who brings the starry host one by one and calls them all by name, it is because of His mighty strength and awesome power that none of them are missing", Isaiah 40:26.

Do you believe that? You really believe that God created all those billions of stars? Did you know that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way? Did you know that our galaxy is one of the smallest ones in the universe? Did you know that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, and some of them dwarf our tiny galaxy? He knows them all by name; each one of those gas burning stars, thousands of times, maybe even millions of times bigger than our sun; God knows them all, He has a name for each one, and He keeps them there with His awesome power.

The universe is held together by His word, it says in Hebrews; all things hold together by His word; every night we can witness the power and the glory of this God who keeps everything running; that is a miracle happening in front of our eyes, every single night. Do you feel the sun in the day time? That is another miracle; we should be toasted every day, calcined and consumed I say, but we are not; thanks to His mercy.

If the bible is the word of God; then it came out of His mind, and if it came out of His mind, it came from it from eternity; His word will never pass away, Jesus said; it is solid, it is pure unadulterated truth, and it was written to you and I, it was specifically given to us, His children; do you believe that? I do.

Not all things will work out the way we want them, but they will work out for our good; that is His promise, read Romans 8 and you will see; and nothing can ever separate us from His amazing love, nothing, not even ourselves could separate us from His love; that my friend, is the truth, the pure, unadulterated truth of the gospel of Christ.

I'm going to stop there because I need to lay down to rest my painful back, but think about what I'm saying; think slowly, think hard, but not about yourself and your seemingly pitiful condition; think about the glory that awaits us once this nightmare of a life is over; after 35 billion beats of our hearts.

This is my word for you today, brother, sister, whoever you are who reads this; on behalf of the King of kings; you are accepted in the beloved, that is His word for us; accepted once and for all time, until the very end; you have been chosen from eternity to be His child, and that glorious day He will parade you and I as His work of art; His poema of eternal love.

Have a nice day.

http://makariotes.blogspot.com